Cruelty at Exeter Christmas Market

Those of you who’ve visited the Christmas market in Cathedral Yard may have seen that there is a French stall selling foie gras, another selling exotic meats (e.g. kangaroo, crocodile), a falconry stall with a tethered golden eagle, and a stall selling reindeer skins and antlers.

Exeter Friends for Animals is contacting the City Council about its complete lack of ethical standards, but individual letters/emails of complaint from members of the public regarding any one or all of these issues would strengthen their case.

The production of foie gras is so cruel it is banned in this country and many others, and many shops/restaurants have withdrawn it from sale in response to public pressure. (Here’s Kate Winslet explaining why Foie Gras is unacceptable www.peta.org)

Exotic meats raise serious questions concerning capture, rearing and slaughter methods – what information can the council provide on these?

The noisy, crowded environment of the market is highly distressing and totally unsuitable for birds of prey (or any live animal).

Please add a comment here on the blog when you’ve sent off your email to Exeter City Council. I wasn’t sure whether to add the picture below as it is upsetting but there are some much much worse images of this practice out there. Please take just two mins to email the City Council and tell them to ask the stallholder to remove Foie Gras products from the event. Thank you.

I would like to draw your attention to the “exotic” meat stall at Christmas market in Cathedral Yard, my points are:-

The production of foie gras is so cruel it is banned in this country and many others, and many shops/restaurants have withdrawn it from sale in response to public pressure. (Here’s Kate Winslet explaining why Foie Gras is unacceptable http://www.peta.org)
Exotic meats raise serious questions concerning capture, rearing and slaughter methods – what information can the council provide on these?
The noisy, crowded environment of the market is highly distressing and totally unsuitable for birds of prey (or any live animal).
I am a vegan and want to see ethical farming methods everywhere. I don’t see why people have to eat meat at all, we have international athletes that are vegan, and vegans probably get more vitamins and minerals, better than mcdonalds and KFC. Its unnecessary and cruel, and signifies a culture that is frankly backward.

I’m a trader at the christmas market and have to answer a couple of points
1. the animals used for the meat on the exotic meat stall are farm reared and as far as i can know are slaughtered as per the law requires
2. foie gras I cant tell you anything about it i didnt know anyone was selling it.
3its a personal choice to be vegan or vegatarian but if god wanted you to just eat veg why did he give us all k9 teeth

If you don’t want to eat foie gras don’t buy it. Please stop trying to spoil it for people like me who think it is yummy. Geese are naturally predisposed to over eat in preparation for migration, and gavage is only done during the last three weeks of preparation. There are much worse things happening in the world.